Pizza Madness

zydecopaws · May 29, 2009

Last night was Pizza Disaster night. Armed with fresh dough from TJ's, we proceed to fark up the transfer process for what were otherwise good tasting pizzas:

The first one wasn't even close to round as it almost folded in half on its way to the stone:

When complete, it was shaped more like some country in Europe than round:

The second pizza was closer to round, but had real thick crust on the outside, and real thin on the inside. So thin that in some places it was transparent:

In spite of all these problems, the pizzas still tasted pretty good. And since we are stubborn (and had dough for two more crusts in the fridge), off we went to the local Cash & Carry, picked up a couple of pizza pans, and gave it a go again tonight.

First pizza was garlic dough, homemade pizza sauce (tomato paste, minced garlic, tomato sauce, Italian seasonings, and a splash of white wine), mozzarella cheese, mushrooms, olives, and onions:

Turned out round, crust done perfectly (well, at least the way we like it), and went on and off the grill without a hitch:

The second pizza was whole wheat crust, more of that homemade pizza sauce, mozzarella cheese, leftover pork tenderloin from a cook late last week, pineapple, bell peppers, onions, and oregano. Oh yeah, and a few olives on one end to keep the boss happy:

As you can see from the close-up, another nice result, with the added advantage of some extra smoke flavor from the pork tenderloin:

All in all, the investment in the pizza pans was well worth it. There aren't any local pizzerias that can compare to the results we had tonight.

thillin · May 29, 2009

Looks good. I picked up some pizza screens from ACE Mart. They work great.

http://www.acemart.com/prod4712.html

Also work great to load a bunch of armadillo eggs or wins. Place on screen in the kitchen then straight on the egg quickly.

bigabyte · May 30, 2009

I'd eat any of them. Even the one that looks like a country in Europe!

JamesTX · May 30, 2009

Try using parchment paper - make the pizza on that and it'll slide whereever you want it to go.

Jaberwabee · May 30, 2009

You had me at Europe.

millsy · May 30, 2009

JamesTX said:
Try using parchment paper - make the pizza on that and it'll slide whereever you want it to go.

I will have to try that,we have been using corn meal.

aquablue22 · May 30, 2009

What JamesTX said.........Makes working with them much easier......and does not fark up your stone! I learned that the hard way, finally saw the light looking at RTD's terrific pictures!

Saiko · May 30, 2009

Still looks good to me!
You can also try using a pizza peel. You can build your pizzas right on the peel, then just slide it on to the stone.
If you make your own dough, you can also roll out the dough right on the peel.

Desert Dweller · May 30, 2009

Good job. Kind of like mixing Geography with Culinary Arts!:wink:

Rick's Tropical Delight · May 30, 2009

yes, sir, learning how to get the pizza cleanly to the stone is the hardest part. i messed up a few in the beginning, then i started using parchment paper. then i started i using cornmeal under the dough to act like mini ball bearings to help the dough slide off. then i switched to whole wheat flour because i didn't like the taste of the cornmeal on the crust. the more toppings you put on the pizza, the heavier the weight is on the dough and the greater the friction on transport surface, be it pizza peel or cookie sheet. the longer you leave the pizza on the transport surface, the more harder it is to get off the surface. i've found if i roll out the dough on the table with whole wheat flour under it, then transfer it to the pizza peel with whole wheat flour on the peel and quickly build the toppings as fast as i can, the pizza will slide off the peel with one quick jerking motion to break the friction between the dough and the peel. it's kind of like pulling the tablecloth off a table loaded with dishes... you have to do a quick, even jerk. :biggrin:

Que-Dawg · May 30, 2009

Very nice, that last pie looks real good.

Saiko · May 30, 2009

Rick's Tropical Delight said:
transfer it to the pizza peel with whole wheat flour on the peel and quickly build the toppings as fast as i can, the pizza will slide off the peel with one quick jerking motion to break the friction between the dough and the peel. it's kind of like pulling the tablecloth off a table loaded with dishes... you have to do a quick, even jerk. :biggrin:

Exactly. And at the black belt level, you can do it with a pizza peel in each hand and dump two on the grates at the same time.:-D And like RTD said, the longer it sits the more chance it will start sticking. You can usually break it free though by doing a little shake-n-bake with short motions. And I learned the hard way, do a little shake to make sure nothing is sticking before trying to transfer. It just takes one little micron of dough to stick to make things get real ugly.

LMAJ · May 30, 2009

bigabyte said:
I'd eat any of them. Even the one that looks like a country in Europe!

I'm with big on this one - looks good!

ZILLA · May 30, 2009

Great looking Pizza. I started transferring from a wooden peel and went to using screens until the dough was set. Much easier during a party.

cowgirl · May 30, 2009

Heck, they all look great to me too!! Nice looking pizzas Zydeco!

TexasAggie97 · May 30, 2009

Great looking pizzas!

zydecopaws · May 30, 2009

Thanks for all the compliments and the advice. I think our biggest problem was letting the dough sit too long on whatever we had and it was absorbing all the flour/cornmeal and then turning into glue. We decided against the pizza peels as the pans have other uses and fit in the cabinets better; our challenge now is to make a good homemade dough. I would imagine I will be running some searches against the forum in the very near future...

Saiko · May 30, 2009

If you have a good mixer with a dough hook, making pizza dough is a breeze. Pizza dough is much more forgiving than bread.

Pizza Madness

zydecopaws

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thillin

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